


The Memory of You

by mad_mythical_monster



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kid Fic, M/M, Reconciliation, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6679282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_mythical_monster/pseuds/mad_mythical_monster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all comes back to him; the despair when Grantaire had broken up with him, the weeks in bed with nausea and heartache, Combeferre eventually convincing him to take a pregnancy test, and then the horror. He had been so scared, so worried, because if Grantaire found out he’d come back, he’d feel obligated to take care of Enjolras and their baby, and Enjolras didn’t want to be trapped in a marriage like his parents’, where one partner loved the other desperately and the other only stayed for the kids. He didn’t want Grantaire to be tied to a child he didn’t want.<br/>------<br/>Enjolras and Grantaire used to be a unit, Enjolras-and-Grantaire, together in every way, but the stress of graduation tore them apart. Now, two years after the break-up, Enjolras, his daughter Salomé, and Combeferre move into the apartment down the hall from Grantaire's, and Enjolras has to admit the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by a tumblr post about "we used to date in college" aus, but I totally lost track of the post. This is my first real fic, and my first one I'm posting anywhere, so please leave feedback. Thanks!

Oddly enough, it’s not Combeferre or Enjolras who sees him first, but Courfeyrac. He comes running back into the apartment five minutes after he left, his eyes wild and his face flushed with excitement. Enjolras has finally managed to get Salomé to sleep, and he’s halfway out of his chair, because he just knows that she’s going to wake up again, before he even registers that Courfeyrac looks like he just saw a ghost.

Enjolras stops, and turns to ask Courfeyrac what’s going on. Salomé doesn’t need him, anyway, Enjolras can already hear Combeferre soothing her with murmured words. “Courf?” he asks, sitting back down on the sofa and motioning for his friend to join him. “What’s wrong?”

The dark-haired man sinks down, and Enjolras knows what he’s going to say, from the hesitation clearly written across his face and the way he just sits there in the puddle of juice that Enjolras hasn’t had a chance to clean up yet. The couch is stained enough as it is, Enjolras figures he’ll just buy a new one when Salomé gets old enough to not spill every liquid she touches. Courfeyrac doesn’t seem to notice the apple juice soaking into his pink jeans, though. He’s busy watching Enjolras, and the blond braces himself for the news that is surely about to come. But Courfeyrac doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring. 

“Courf?” Enjolras repeats, once his friend’s silence has started to freak him out. He doesn’t think he’s seen Courfeyrac be quiet this long in years.

The other man shakes himself, and blinks at Enjolras. “Enj,” he warns. “You’re not going to like this.”

Enjolras sighs. “I gathered as much. Should I fetch Combeferre?”

“Fetch me for what?” a deep voice asks. Combeferre enters the living room, a blonde-ringletted girl perched on his shoulders. She’s tiny, but Ferre’s so tall that her head nearly brushes the ceiling.

“Courf has bad news,” the blond explains. He addresses his remarks to his best friends, but his eyes are on his daughter. She looks tired, her brown eyes (just like His, and Enjolras never says his name, never even thinks it, but he sees evidence of Him in their daughter every single day) lingering closed for longer and longer each time she blinks. He smiles at her, but he knows it’s tense. He thinks he knows what Courf is going to say, and he’s not ready to hear it.

Courfeyrac shakes his head, though. “It’s not necessarily bad news,” he says. “I just worry about he you’re going to react.”

So that rules out Enjolras’ first guess; that Bahorel had been arrested again, because Courfeyrac loves their friends and there’s no way that he could possibly see Bahorel losing his job as a good thing.

Combeferre takes Salomé off his shoulders and sets her down in Enjolras’ lap, as if he’s trying to anchor the blond to his seat.

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Just tell me,” he demands.

Courfeyrac looks to Combeferre for permission, which makes Enjolras bristle, and takes the blond’s hand. “Enjolras,” he says, his voice low and almost timid, except Courf is never timid, and Enjolras feels a flash of fear. “Enjolras, I just saw Grantaire in the hall.”

It was a good move, on Combeferre’s part, putting Salomé in Enjolras’ lap, because she’s almost asleep again, and if Enjolras reacts the way he longs to, jumps to his feet and screams and hyperventilates, then she’ll be up half the night. Instead, he clutches his daughter close and stares wide-eyed at his friend. “What?” This has to be a joke. Enjolras hasn’t heard anything from Grantaire in two years. Why on earth would he be in the hallway of Enjolras’ apartment building?

But Courfeyrac doesn’t look like he’s joking. His eyes, usually warm and full of liquid mirth, are serious. “He said he lives here,” he explains. “Just down the hall.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of the elevator, which would explain why Enjolras has never seen him. Salomé hates elevators, and, given the state of the one in their building, Enjolras doesn’t blame her.

The blond’s mind is racing. They just moved in here last month, and it’s affordable and has three bedrooms so Salomé’s crib isn’t in his room anymore and the school district is good, and Enjolras does not want to move. But he’s going to have to, because he cannot live in the same building as Grantaire (his mind recoils from the name, but now that Courf has said it, Enjolras can’t stop thinking it: Grantaire Grantaire Grantaire Grantaire R), not after he hasn’t seen him in two years, not after everything he’s kept from the artist.

Combeferre, because he’s an angel and he’s known Enjolras long enough to know exactly what’s going through his head, says firmly, “We’re not moving.” He then proceeds to ask all the questions that have been running through Enjolras’ mind since he last saw the dark-haired man.  
Did he look well? Not really.  
Where was he going? No idea, Courf barely talked to him at all.  
Did he say anything about what he’d been doing for the past two years? Courfeyrac points out, again, that he only saw him for a few moments.  
Did he seem sober? Courf’s answer to this is a noncommittal shrug that Enjolras knows is a no, and his heart breaks a little more, because R had been doing so well, back when they were together, he was getting clean, he was getting better, and then the fighting had started and everything had gone downhill. Enjolras pulls Salomé closer, as if by protecting her he can somehow protect the man who contributed half of her DNA.

And then Combeferre asks the question, the one Enjolras has been desperate and terrified to hear. “Did he ask about Enjolras?”

Courfeyrac shakes his head, and Enjolras feels a rush of something uncertain in his stomach; disappointment or relief or a mixture of the two, he is not sure. He shakes off Courf’s grip and smooths Salomé’s curls. She’s asleep again, her head pillowed on his shoulder, and he feels a rush of affection for the child in his arms. His daughter, his Salomé… but he knows that’s not entirely true. Salomé is just as much Grantaire’s as she is his, and the fact that Enjolras has been raising her by himself means nothing, because Grantaire didn’t know.

It all comes back to him; the despair when Grantaire had broken up with him, the weeks in bed with nausea and heartache, Combeferre eventually convincing him to take a pregnancy test, and then the horror. He had been so scared, so worried, because if Grantaire found out he’d come back, he’d feel obligated to take care of Enjolras and their baby, and Enjolras didn’t want to be trapped in a marriage like his parents’, where one partner loved the other desperately and the other only stayed for the kids. He didn’t want Grantaire to be tied to a child he didn’t want.

Combeferre sees his face, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Enj,” he says, “Maybe it’s time for you to tell him. You’ve proven that you can raise Salomé on your own; R won’t try to help you unless you both want it. He deserves to know.”

Enjolras’ mind recoils at the idea. After all the trouble he’s gone to, getting Éponine and Jehan and Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta to keep quiet, why would he tell him now? Why would he give up the illusion of happiness that he’s created for some more very real heartbreak?

Yet telling R does have its merits: every parent deserves a chance to know their child, or at least to know they exist, and Enjolras can’t help thinking that Grantaire would be a wonderful father. Salomé already reminds him of R in so many ways; she’s already drawing, scribbled pictures on the backs of envelopes (and Enjolras hates her sometimes for that, when he can’t read the return address on a letter because Salomé has drawn a cloud over it, and he remembers the doodles that R used to scribble on every bit of paper set in front of him), and she’s been dancing since she was a tiny infant, to music that Courfeyrac played at an absurd volume. It always puts Enjolras near tears, because this was the music Grantaire liked, and Enjolras could just picture it, the artist dancing around the living room, their daughter in his arms, dancing to Panic! at the Disco and the Smiths and the Arctic Monkeys (and Courf didn’t even like half the songs he played, but Salomé clearly did, and it shattered Enjolras’ broken heart all over again).

Maybe he should tell Grantaire.

The first thing Grantaire thinks, when he sees Courfeyrac in the grimy hallway of his apartment building, is that Courf must be leaving one of his one-night-stands. He used to sleep with a different person every week, back in college, but it’s barely eight p.m., and that seems a little early to leave a hook-up, even if you have work in the morning. And it’s a Sunday night. Who goes out on Sundays? Then he realizes that this Courfeyrac, who he hasn’t seen in two years, in hallway of his apartment building, and his brain fizzles out for a minute.

“Courfeyrac?” he says, once the shock has passed. He pulls his beanie down over his hair, conscious of how awful he looks. He hasn’t showered in three days; he definitely smells like a combination of alcohol and paint. He hasn’t slept in three days either, hopped up on drugs and all but throwing paint at a canvas, and he knows he’s put on weight since college. It’s strange, seeing Courf after all this time. How do you react to your ex-boyfriend’s best friend?

A small voice in the back of Grantaire’s mind tells him that Courfeyrac was his friend too, that they had gone out to clubs and parties even before Grantaire joined the Amis.

“Grantaire?” Courfeyrac asks. “What are you doing here?”

Grantaire shrugs, and points down the hall towards his apartment. “I live here.”

“Oh,” Courfeyrac says, and he suddenly looks stricken, glancing down the hall in the opposite direction. “Thats… nice.”

R shrugs again, his mind still a little slow, though his last drink had been several hours ago. “It’s not great, but it’s better than my last place.” His last place being the apartment in a building that was little more than a shack, the place where he’d moved after he and Enjolras broke up (thinking his name is as painful as always, but it’s a pain Grantaire relishes, a pain that proves the golden god had actually dated him for over two years). He stands there awkwardly, waiting for Courf to say more, but the shorter man just glances back and forth between the stairs and the end of the hall. Eventually, Grantaire heads down the stairs.

 

He forgets about the entire exchange, or tries to anyway, until later in the week, when he’s on his way back from bartending at the Corinth (and he’s glad he got the rights to the Corinth in the breakup, because the Musain might have better food but it has ten times more memories of Enjolras), and sees Combeferre on the stairs. He can dream up plenty of reasons for Courfeyrac to be in the building, plenty of reasons that don’t mean Grantaire has to move, but if Combeferre’s here, then one of the Amis has to live here too. And it’s not Bahorel or Joly or Bossuet or any of the ones who Grantaire spent time with outside of bar-hopping and hanging out as an entire group, because Grantaire would know. Most of them may have sided with Enjolras in the breakup, because, however much it had hurt him, R had been the one to do the actual relationship-ending, but they had stayed in touch. He would know if they lived in his apartment building.

Which leaves very few options, to be honest. He knows where Feuilly and Bahorel and Jehan live; he’s been to Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta’s apartment; he’s at Éponine’s at least once a week. Cosette and Marius (because last he’d heard the blonde had finally managed to convince Courf to give up his roommate) live somewhere on the other side of town, and besides, Cosette is one of those people that would bake cookies for the entire floor as soon as she was unpacked. Courfeyrac would have said something, if he lived here too, so it’s either Combeferre himself… or Enjolras.

The thought sends a sudden flash of panic through Grantaire’s mind, because either option guarantees quite a few sightings of Enjolras, and Grantaire can’t put up with that. He hasn’t seen his ex-boyfriend since they broke up, not even when he went to collect his things from their apartment, and Grantaire doesn’t think he can handle it. It’s been two years and he’s still just as in love with Enjolras as he was during their relationship, and Enjolras is surely just as beautiful as he used to be, maybe even more.

So he’s going to have to see Enjolras, or move, and both of those options are atrocious. He’s only barely affording this place as it is, and he can’t go back to his old place or anything like it, but seeing perfect golden curls and ice-blue eyes every day seems like torture.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” he mutters.

Combeferre, half a stairwell in front of him, turns around. “What? Oh! Grantaire!” His hair is longer, or rather taller, than it was in college, but his horn-rimmed glasses are exactly the same. “Courf said you lived here.”

Grantaire lifts a shoulder noncommittally. “Yeah. He didn’t say which one of you did, though.”

“Oh,” Ferre says again, studying Grantaire like he’s a particularly interesting specimen in the lab. Grantaire feels a rush of affection for him. He and Combeferre had never hung out much on their own, but he had always been good for any sort of discussion.

“I do,” he says.

“What?” Grantaire asks, his mind back in the Musain, when they would hold meetings and then dissolve into little groups for more casual discussion.

“I live here. With… with Enjolras.”

Grantaire doesn’t know why he’s surprised. They had always been close, Enjolras and Combeferre. It makes sense that they’d room together. “Enjolras lives here?” He can’t keep the slight note of disappointment from his voice. If it had just been Ferre, then maybe the two of them could have been convinced to spend their time at Enjolras’ apartment, but if they both do, then there’s nowhere else to go. He’s screwed, there’s no way he won’t see Enjolras at some point.

“Yeah,” Ferre says. He looks a little sorry, like he knows what’s going through Grantaire’s head, even as he continues up the rest of the stairs. “We just moved in a month or so ago. Apartment 3E.”

They pause again in the hallway, and Grantaire lets the words sink in. Why does fate hate him so much? Why, out of all the apartments in the city, had he and Enjolras, the one person he wants to avoid more than anything, ended up not just in the same building, but on the same floor?

“I’m in 3B,” he says eventually.

“Courf said it was somewhere by the elevator.” Combeferre seems to be running out of neutral topics, and Grantaire doesn’t know what to say either.

They stand there in silence for another long moment, until Combeferre shakes himself and smiles. It’s a real smile, if small, and Grantaire’s chest feels warm. He crushes down the feeling. He broke up with Ferre’s best friend and disappeared, he doesn’t deserve real smiles, especially not ones tinged with affection.

“We should get together sometime,” Combeferre finally offers.

Grantaire frowns. “That might be a bit awkward,” he points out.

The other man nods. “If we’re going to be in the same building, though, we should probably work out some of the lingering issues.”

Fear flashes through Grantaire. Not only is he expected to see Enjolras in the halls, but now Ferre wants them to “work out lingering issues?”

Combeferre must see his stricken expression for what it is, because he doesn’t try to prolong the conversation, just smiles again and gestures towards his apartment. “I should go make dinner, but you know where to find us, yeah?”

Grantaire tries to force his mouth into some sort of grin, but it comes out a pained grimace. He watches as Combeferre disappears down the hall, and slides down the wall, his heartbeat a mile a minute and his breathing ragged, as if he’s just run three miles. Why does Enjolras have to ruin this, right when he’s just started getting his life back together?

 

In the end, it’s a painting that does it. Grantaire may have stopped seeing Enjolras, but he never stopped painting him, and lately there’s been this lingering fear that Grantaire has forgotten some of his features, that the slope of his nose or the blue of his eyes is somehow misrepresented in his memory. Deep down, Grantaire knows this is ridiculous. Enjolras’ face, his entire body, is burned into the back of Grantaire’s eyelids, but the excuse is all he needs. Now that he knows Enjolras is so close, Grantaire can’t keep himself away. Enjolras has always been the sun, and Grantaire’s been starving for his light for far too long.

So about a week after his conversation with Combeferre, Grantaire knocks on the door of apartment 3E. Grantaire’s tense, and he’s got an excuse prepared; he even brought along a measuring cup to convincingly portray the neighbor in need of a cup of sugar. He knows Enjolras will see right through it, though. Enjolras has probably never bought a bag of sugar in his life, and if Ferre is anything like he was in college; he doesn’t have time to bake.

The first thing that Grantaire notices, when the door opens, is that Enjolras looks good. Not better, because Grantaire has always been and will always be attracted to him no matter what, but he looks more like he’d always wanted, like he’d confessed to Grantaire on cold nights curled up in bed. His eyes are just as blue as always, and his hair is like sunlight, if a bit frazzled, but he’s more masculine, in the line of his jaw and the curve of his throat. Which is strange, because there wasn’t enough money before, when Enjolras was applying to law schools, to even consider HRT for a long time. And Enjolras is brilliant, he’s one of the smartest people Grantaire has ever known, but not even he could finish law school in less than two years, not without landing himself in the hospital. Grantaire likes to think that someone would have told him if Enjolras was in the hospital, and he’s left debating whether it would be inappropriate to ask him about it.

His gaze travels down Enjolras’ body, down the red t-shirt (he always did look good in red) and the dark-wash blue jeans and his boring white socks with their red heels and toes. It takes Grantaire a moment to register what the blond’s shirt says: “World’s Best Dad!” in big, black print. That’s a little odd, but it’s forgotten when Grantaire looks back up to Enjolras’ face.

His mouth is open slightly, whether in shock or horror Grantaire can’t tell, but that’s not what freezes the artist in his assessment: it’s the fear in his eyes, the unmistakable terror.

“Grantaire!” he squeaks out, and a shiver passes through Grantaire’s body. He hasn’t heard Enjolras’ voice in so long, and even if it’s a little different, the sound of his name on the blond’s tongue is pure bliss.

He smiles. “The one and only.”

Enjolras continues to stare at him. “What are you doing here?” And wow, his voice is just a bit hoarse, and it goes straight to Grantaire’s stomach. He wonders if he’d notice it if he’d been in Enjolras’ life for the past to years. He wonders if he’d notice any of the changes, if they happened gradually, instead of being confronted with them all at once.

The blond frowns, and he repeats his question.

Grantaire shakes himself, and holds up the measuring cup. “Can I borrow some sugar?” he asks.

Enjolras looks, if it is even possible, more afraid. “We don’t have any.” He doesn’t comment on the fact that Grantaire should have guessed that much, or how there are three other neighbors Grantaire could have asked before he came to the apartment containing his ex-boyfriend.

Grantaire is about to say “thanks anyway” and leave to come up with a new plot to talk to Enjolras (because that’s what his life’s become; he feels more alive now than he has in months, maybe even years) when a child’s voice calls “Daddy!”

A little blonde kid comes toddling into view, the exact picture of Enjolras. They’re wearing a little green polka-dotted dress and purple leggings, but Grantaire knows better than to assume anything about the gender identity of any child of Enjolras’, and that’s indeed whom the child seems to belong to. If the golden curls weren’t enough of of a clue, they throw themself at Enjolras, and he bends down to scoop them up.

“Who’s this, then?” Grantaire asks, once he’s recovered a bit from the shock. Enjolras props the kid against his hip, and they lean their face into his shoulder. They can’t be younger than one, and God, Enjolras didn’t waste any time moving on, did he?

Enjolras looks terrified. “This is my daughter Salomé,” he says.

And of course he would name his child “peace.” Grantaire wonders if Prouvaire had a hand in it, and then he feels a stab of anger, because surely all their mutual friends knew about the kid, and none of them told him? He would have wanted to know. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt so guilty, if he’d known that Enjolras had moved on so fast.

“Hi, Salomé,” Grantaire says. His voice sound strange and broken, even to his own ears.

“Say hi, sweetheart,” Enjolras urges, nudging his daughter’s head with his chin. He’s become someone who says “sweetheart,” someone who has a child to call “sweetheart.”

Grantaire’s chest aches, because the best sex he’s had in the past two years were the times he got off to thoughts of Enjolras is, and Enjolras has moved on; had a fucking kid within months of their break-up.

The little girl turns around and smiles at him shyly, and even her face is pure Enjolras, everything except her eyes, which are a deep chocolate brown. Grantaire thinks about who he knows with brown eyes, because he can’t imagine Enjolras ever having sex with some nameless stranger, and the first one into his mind is Combeferre. Combeferre is Enjolras’ best friend, he was probably there for Enjolras when Grantaire left him. It would have been so easy for those two to slip into a relationship, they were practically an old married couple already. Grantaire had been jealous of Combeferre so many times, not because he worried that Enjolras’ feelings for his friend were anything but platonic, but because of their easy intimacy. The more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Combeferre said they both live here, right? Why else, if not because they have a daughter together and a life and a relationship?

Suddenly, Grantaire hates Combeferre, because he has everything Grantaire ever wanted and more. He bets that Enjolras and Combeferre don’t have ruthless screaming matches in front of their friends. He feels tears building up in his eyes, but he covers them with a yawn. “It was… nice to see you, Enjolras,” he says. “I should probably go. Baking, you know.”

Enjolras nods, though Grantaire sincerely doubts he does know, and he and Salomé stand there in the doorway as Grantaire disappears down the hall, back to his apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments! I have a bunch of school work, so the next chapter might be a little while, but I promise it's coming.

When Combeferre gets home from work, Enjolras is sitting on the couch, gazing shell-shocked at the blank wall. Salomé sits at his feet, entertaining herself with some alphabet blocks, but she wears the particular frown that lets everyone know she’s going to start crying any minute now. Normally, Enjolras would be busy trying to entertain her with a different toy, or feed her, or get her ready for bed, anything to distract her from her imminent tears, but he doesn’t seem to see her.

Combeferre sets down his messenger bag, and enters the living room properly.

“Ferre!” Salomé exclaims, her displeasure disappearing into a sunny grin. It’s a relatively new word for her, and it makes Combeferre happy every time she says it.

“Hello Salomé,” he says, scooping her up and bracing her against his hip.

Enjolras registers all of this dully, as if through a curtain of fog. He’s seen Grantaire, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. He’s seen Grantaire, and Grantaire has seen Salomé, and he hadn’t acted at all how Enjolras expected him to.

“Enjolras?” Combeferre asks. His tone implies that he’s been speaking for a while, and Enjolras shakes himself and looks up at his best friend.

“Huh?”

“What happened, Enj?”

“R came by.” He lets out a shaky breath, and blinks rapidly, trying to keep his eyes from glazing over again. “He saw Salomé, and he didn’t say anything about her, not really. He just shut down and left.”

Combeferre’s brow furrows. “What?”

“He came by looking for a cup of sugar, which is ridiculous, he should know we wouldn’t have any-”

At this, Combeferre snorts. “He wanted to borrow food? From us?”

Enjolras nods insistently. “And then Salomé came running up, and he asked her name and said hi, and then he left. He didn’t even go to any other apartments to ask them for sugar.”

Combeferre bounces Salomé on his hip, shakes his head. “The sugar was an excuse, Enj.”

“What?” Seeing Grantaire again must be affecting him more than he thought, because that’s a level of obliviousness that even Enjolras rarely reaches.

“He clearly just wanted to come and see you,” Combeferre explains. “And he was probably just shocked by Salomé, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll be back in not too long with some questions.”

 ---- 

When he gets back to his apartment, Grantaire throws the measuring cup into the sink, where it clangs off of a pile of dirty dishes. He should probably wash them up, he knows that, but instead he pulls out a bottle of wine, uncorks it, and takes a gulp straight from the bottle. The wine won’t get him drunk nearly fast enough, but that’s a good thing, given his current mood. If he moves straight to the harder stuff, he’s in danger of giving himself alcohol poisoning, and he promised Joly to drink more carefully after the last time. It’s been a hard one-and-a-half years of staying just on the right side of dangerously drunk, but he’s managed it. He could go find something stronger, not just alcohol but coke or pretty much anything to take his mind off of the little girl who looked just like Enjolras, but that would require leaving the apartment, and Grantaire can’t do that, not with the possibility of seeing Combeferre or, worse, Enjolras, in the hall.

So he downs two bottles of wine and passes out his couch, his heart so heavy that he doesn’t even register the tears streaming down his face.

 

When he wakes up, it’s mid-afternoon, his mouth tastes like bile, and his head is splitting. He barely makes it to the bathroom before he vomits up everything in his stomach, which is thankfully very little. He stumbles back to the couch without flushing, because he’s almost certain to heave again, and the rush of the pipes would sound like a war-zone to his aching skull.

God, he needs a drink, but one isn’t friends with Joly for six years without picking up a few of his health-conscious habits, especially the useful ones, so Grantaire makes himself drink two glasses of water and take some Aspirin before he allows himself a beer.

He’s halfway into his second one, wincing at the taste (why does he even drink beer? It tastes like piss. Enjolras used to refuse to kiss him when he’d been drinking beer. Enjolras) and flipping through various mid-afternoon talk shows, when his phone rings.

Grantaire glances down at it, the ring causing a harsh bolt of pain just behind his eyes. Éponine. Grantaire’s mad at her, he’s furious at all of his friends who have seen Enjolras in the past two years and reported to Grantaire on how he’s doing and left out such a colossal part of his life, but he wants answers, and maybe ‘Ponine will have them. He accepts the call and mutes the TV. This is a discussion that he needs to hear every part of.

“R?” Éponine’s voice sounds worried, but Grantaire doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt. “Are you alright? Combeferre called, he said you saw Enjolras and that he was worried about you-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Grantaire demands.

“Tell you what?” she asks, although she sounds scared, and there’s a slight hesitation to her words.

“You know,” he growls, gesturing uselessly around his living room. “That Enjolras moved into my building with Combeferre. That he has a fucking kid, ‘Ponine!”

“Grantaire-” She sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know, not at first, and by the time I found out, you were spiralling with drugs. It wouldn’t have helped anyone for you to know, not then. And it’s not my secret to tell.”

“So you’ve been lying to me for the past two years?! Because, what, Enjolras asked you to?”

She’s silent, but that’s answer enough.

“Who’s supposed to be your best friend, anyway?”

“R, it was for your own good,” she interrupts, but Grantaire pushes on.

“Don’t you dare tell me that leaving out the fact that the… the love of my life,” Grantaire sputters, and he knows he sounds like someone in a rom-com, he’s always avoided that phrase, but it’s true, “that the man I love has been dating his best friend since he and I broke up?”

“R-”

“That they have a child together?!” He’s shouting, now, and he really hopes that his neighbors, and most of all the ones in 3E, can’t hear him, but the walls here are thin as paper. At some point, he’d stood up, but something breaks inside him, when he says the words, and Grantaire sinks back down onto the couch. “You could have told me how he moved on within months, because I’m still stuck here crying over him and it’s my own fucking fault-”

Éponine interrupts again. “R. Grantaire. Salomé’s not Combeferre’s kid, and Enjolras and he aren’t together. Think this through. She doesn’t look anything like Ferre. Have you even seen her? She’s pale as milk.”

“She has brown eyes,” Grantaire points out. Admittedly, this should have occurred to Grantaire, because genetics are a thing and sure, it’s possible for a biracial child to look white entirely, but it’s highly unlikely. He brushes away his embarrassment.

“So do you, Grantaire-”

He interrupts her again. “Who’s kid is she, then? Did they leave him? Do I have to beat someone up?”

“God, R,” Éponine gasps, and it sounds almost like she’s laughing. “You don’t need to beat anyone up.”

“Was it miraculous conception? Because if anyone could do it, it would be him, but her eyes aren’t the same color as his, and you’d think they would-”

“Think this through, Grantaire,” Éponine says, slow and careful, like she’s spelling it out for him. “Who has Enjolras definitely had sex with? Salomé’s fifteen months old. Who was with him two years ago?”

“He didn’t cheat on me, did he?” Because, sure, their relationship had been a mess at the end, but Enjolras is a good person. He wouldn’t cheat, would he?

Éponine is definitely laughing now. “He didn’t cheat on you, and he didn’t have rebound sex. Who could it possibly be? Who had regular sex with him for two and a half years in college?”

The amount of time it takes Grantaire to work it out is staggeringly long, but he blames it on the alcohol and his still-lingering hangover. “She’s mine?” he whispers eventually.

If Éponine were Cosette, or Joly, or Jehan, or pretty much any of their other friends, she would have said something comforting, but she’s Éponine, and comfort doesn’t even occur to her as an option. “Took you long enough, dumbass.”

“I have a daughter?” he says, the words sinking into his brain. He drops further back into the couch. He feels dizzy, and he somehow doubts it has anything to do with the alcohol.

“Yes, Grantaire,” Éponine says. “You have a kid.”

“I should go talk to Enjolras.” He doesn’t particularly want to, not right now, but it seems like the thing to do.

“You probably should,” Éponine agrees. “But I need you to do something for me first.”

“Huh?”

“Sober up before you go over there. And maybe take a shower first.”

Grantaire’s about to object, because it’s not like Éponine is one to talk: she’s never sober, not if she can help it, but then he thinks of the little child down the hall, the one who shares his genes, and maybe he didn’t make such a good first impression, but he’s going to do better the second time around. “Ok,” he agrees. He pushes the beer away, suddenly thankful that he didn’t look for anything stronger last night. “Ok.” It’s probably a good idea, for him to be sober when he confronts Enjolras. He’s always been able to argue fine when he’s smashed, but he can never say exactly what he wants to, and if there was ever a time for clarity, it’s in this conversation.

He has work tonight, but there’s a good likelyhood he can talk Floreál into covering for him, especially if he tells her what’s going on.

He texts her, tells her it’s a family emergency and he needs her to take his shift tonight, and she agrees readily enough.

‘Just promise ur not out getting high,’ she writes.

Grantaire promises, and she sends back a smiley face and tells him to keep her updated. Grantaire doesn’t appreciate Floreál as much as he should. She’s great, and she’s only met Enjolras once, back in college when R and her were in the same ballet class, and she hasn’t been lying to him for two fucking years. He should do something nice for her sometime. Maybe he’ll find her a better boyfriend than that God-awful stock broker.

 

After a shower and a couple hours for the beers to leave his system (not that they were enough to get him more than barely tipsy, anyway), Grantaire puts on his cleanest clothes, or at least the ones that smell the best, even if they are covered in paint, and heads down the hall to 3E.

Combeferre answers the door, and he doesn’t look surprised to see Grantaire. “R,” he says. “‘Ponine called.”

“Oh.” Grantaire blushes. “What did she say?”

The corners of Combeferre’s mouth turn up. “Just that you would be coming over in a few hours, and that you wanted to talk to Enjolras.” Grantaire swallows and nods, and Combeferre’s smile grows. He steps aside, allowing Grantaire into the apartment, and gestures to the couch. “Enjolras isn’t home yet,” he says. “But he should be back any minute now. He’s just picking up Salomé from daycare.” He turns and heads into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea?”

The noise Grantaire responds with is low in his throat, and doesn’t really mean anything, but Combeferre must take it for an affirmative, because he returns several minutes later with two mugs of Earl Grey. The one he puts in front of Grantaire is black with two sugars, just how he likes it. Grantaire smiles in thanks, and it is almost genuine. He hasn’t had tea with Ferre in two years, but the man remembered how he takes it.

Grantaire sips his tea, and glances around the room. There’s a messenger bag leaning against an armchair in the corner, the half-open top revealing several binders. “So, how have you been? What are you doing now?” he asks, trying to break up some of the tension in the room.

“I’m a teacher,” Ferre says. It’s clear he likes the work, he even shoots his bag a fond look. “I teach physics down at the high school, and I go in and do guest science lessons at the elementary school.”

“Oh.” Grantaire says. God, Ferre sounds so much more grown up than him. “That sounds… nice.”

“It is,” he agrees. “It’s a lot of work, but I love it.” He’s silent for a moment. “What do you do now?” The way he says the question is hesitant, weighted in a manner that is unusual for Combeferre. He’s obviously aware that this may be a sore spot.

Grantaire shrugs. “This and that. I’ve been bartending for the past few months, and before that I helped clean a different bar.” He’s been painting, too, and has even been paid for a few commissions, but he doesn’t tell Ferre that. He’s not sure why, in the old days it’s something that all of his friends would have celebrated, but now he can’t get the words out.

“Is that good for you?” Combeferre asks, and then slams his mouth shut, as if he hadn’t meant to let that thought escape. “Being around all that alcohol, I mean.”

Grantaire looks at the ground. “I’d be drinking anyway. At least when I’m working I can’t get blackout drunk.”

He doesn’t see Combeferre’s nod, but he can sense it. “I know, but maybe getting a job with less alcohol on hand-”

Grantaire looks up, and forces himself to meet the soft brown eyes. “Drop it, Combeferre. It’s a problem I can’t really deal with right now.” He takes another gulp of his tea.

There’s the sound of a key in the front door, and then Enjolras walks in, Salomé balanced on his hip. “The amount of people on the train was ridiculous-” he starts, and then stops dead when he sees Grantaire.

Grantaire waves awkwardly from the couch. Salomé buries her face in Enjolras’ shoulder.

“R?” Enjolras asks. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for some answers,” Grantaire replies, his anger returning now that he sees Enjolras again.

Combeferre frowns. “Perhaps this conversation should happen in privacy?” Grantaire opens his mouth to object, and Enjolras shakes his head, but Combeferre scoops up Salomé and heads back towards the front door, picking up his phone and keys on the way. “We are going to go pick up some dinner,” he says. “Try not to kill each other in the next hour.”

When the door closes behind the two, Enjolras turns back to Grantaire, but he doesn’t say anything. He just watches, his blue eyes studying the artist with the intensity of a searchlight.

Eventually the silence becomes worse than the argument that is sure to come, and Grantaire speaks. “You didn’t feel the need to tell me about my daughter?” Enjolras flinches, and that’s not fair, R wasn’t even particularly cruel. How is he supposed to get all his feelings out if Enjolras makes that same hurt face every time?

“You left,” Enjolras says, simple and flat and devoid of emotion.

God, Grantaire had always hated this, when Enjolras went dead. A normal argument with him was fine, exulting even, some sort of twisted foreplay, because the passion shown through on his face. But when the blond shut down, when his eyes were cold and his words calm, that was when Grantaire knew to back off. (Something in the back of R’s mind reminds him of their final argument, when Enjolras went cold and Grantaire just couldn’t take it any more.) “And how does that forfeit my right to know about my child?”

“You broke up with me,” Enjolras repeats. Despite the tone, Grantaire can see the emotion beneath his ice-cold exterior, and he wonders if this argument is particularly close to the surface, or if he’s just gotten somehow better at reading Enjolras in the years apart.

“Only because you were going to break up with me,” he retorts.

The blond shakes his head, but doesn’t have a response to the accusation. “You broke up with me,” he repeats. “And then I found out, and I didn’t want to see you-”

“You lied to me,” Grantaire interrupts. “You lied and you got all our friends to lie too. Were you planning on keeping this up forever, or just until she’s been persuaded that I’m a deadbeat dad?”

The head shake this time is more insistent; the ice is gone now. “Of course not, R! I wanted to tell you, I really did! From the very beginning.”

Grantaire is silent, his mind whirling. What Enjolras is telling him doesn’t make any sense. “How… Then… Why didn’t you tell me?” Enjolras shivers, and looks down at the ground. Grantaire desperately wants to lean over, brush his hair from his eyes, but he can’t. Enjolras is so close, but Grantaire can’t touch him. He lost that privilege two years ago. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he repeated.

When Enjolras looks up, his eyes, blue as the sky, are filled with tears. “I didn’t want… Grantaire, you left.”

“I know,” Grantaire says, and it’s everything he can do to keep himself from reaching out. “I broke up with you, I know, but that… Enj, why didn’t you just tell me? I would have come back!”

“Exactly,” Enjolras says, and his voice sounds broken.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is very minimal editing in this, so if you see any glaring issues, feel free to inform me. Sorry this took so long, I had AP testing the last two weeks. Finals are coming up as well, so the next few might be a while between them, but I promise to keep working on it. Thanks for reading, and for all the kudos and comments!

Grantaire’s mouth falls open, and his eyes are pleading. Enjolras’ chest is tight, but he keeps talking. “I didn’t want to hold you back, R. You broke up with me, and I knew that you’d stay, if you found out about the baby.”

“And you didn’t want me to stay?” His voice is tremulous.

Enjolras shakes his head, quick and insistent. “Of course I wanted you to stay! I loved you.” ‘Love you,’ he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

Grantaire blinks at him. His eyes are very brown, the same eyes that stare out of Salomé’s face every day. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

Enjolras doesn’t know how to phrase this, how to tell him. He shakes his head again. It seems like he’s been doing that a lot in the past few minutes. “I… You’ve met my parents, R. You know the story, how much they hate each other.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I… I… didn’t want us to end up like them.”

“We never would!” Grantaire insists, but Enjolras pushes on.

“You left!” All the panic comes back, the horror of the night that Grantaire stormed out, the fear in the following weeks. “You left and you said it was over and I couldn’t force you to come back!”

“But I would’ve,” he says. “I would have come back in a second! If you’d just told me, Enjolras-”

“Of course you would!” Enjolras’ control breaks. His voice is loud, he’s almost shouting now, and his eyes overflow with tears. “You would’ve come back, and I would never know if it was for me or for the baby!” The last words leave a sharp quiet in their wake.

Grantaire breaks the silence. “It would have been for both of you, Enj. I didn’t break up with you because I didn’t love you any more.”

Outside, the sun is setting, and the rays that push between the curtains are every shade of pink, orange, and red. They illuminate the sharp angles of Grantaire’s face, and if Enjolras was the artistic type, he’d be reaching for a brush. R used to paint him all the time, back in college. He called Enjolras his muse, and the blond consented to posing as long as he could get work done at the same time. It had been nice, peaceful, those mornings in their shared apartment, second semester of junior year and the first half of their senior one. In the end, in the last four months or so, Enjolras doesn’t think he posed for R once, but there were still paintings, at least seven new ones in elaborate detail and plenty of tiny studies that Enjolras had to sort through after the breakup. He thinks of those paintings now, the paintings that proved Grantaire loved him at the end of their relationship just as much as the beginning.

The thought makes Enjolras’ chest ache. “I didn’t want to end up like my parents,” he says again. His eyes are prickling with tears, and he just wants Grantaire to hold him. God, he’s pathetic. Two years and he still can’t get over this stupid man.

“Enj,” Grantaire says, his voice soft and so very small. “Enjolras, I would have respected your wishes. If you wanted me gone, I wouldn’t have to tried to get back together. But I want to know Salomé.”

Enjolras swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Grantaire assures him. “Just let me get to know her now. Please? I can spend some time with her, maybe watch her during the day.”

What is Grantaire doing now, anyway? When Enjolras knew him, he was freaking out about the end of his degree and working alternating afternoons at the Musain, but he’d quit that job, after the break-up. “Are you around during the day?” he asks.

Grantaire shrugs. “I work nights at the Corinth. Bartending, you know.”

There isn’t a timepiece within easy view, but the sun is setting. Grantaire should probably go, if he has to make it to work. Enjolras feels oddly disappointed. “Do you have to go?”

“Nah, I got Floreal to take my shift.”

“Oh.”

There’s another awkward pause. Enjolras doesn’t want R to leave, but he finds himself wishing that Ferre and Salomé would return, if only to break some of the tension. “You should stay for dinner,” he says, after several endless moments have passed.

“I shouldn’t impose-” Grantaire says, and starts to stand up, but Enjolras interrupts.

“It’s not imposing,” he insists. “You were right. You deserve a chance to meet Salomé, and we should… catch up, you know?”

Grantaire nods and settles back into the couch. “So… is second year of law school hard, then?”

Enjolras flinches. There’s no way Grantaire should know that this is a sensitive topic, but his friends have danced around it for so long that any mention of law school is painful. “I’m not in law school.” He keeps his voice firm and flat.

Despite the calm tone, Grantaire looks stricken. “God, Apollo, you could have called me, I could have helped with-”

Enjolras shakes his head quickly, ignoring the rush that the old nickname sends through his veins. “It wasn’t the baby, R. I had Ferre and Courf and everyone, I was not lacking in child care.” He laughs. “Actually, I didn’t get in to law school.”

“What?! You’re one of the smartest people I know. Except for like, Combeferre and Joly, but they hardly count-”

“Oh, I met all the academic requirements,” Enjolras assures him. “It was more… the activism, you know. And the arrests. Most schools don’t want to admit a guy with an arrest record as long as his school transcripts, especially not one as controversial as I apparently promise to be.” If he sounds bitter, it’s because he is. Ever since childhood, he had dreamed of becoming a lawyer, of helping those whom the system trod on the most, only to have the dream denied by a few measly arrests for protesting (and resisting arrest, but that one wasn’t his fault.)

“Oh,” Grantaire says. He half-rises up the couch for a second, like he wants to come comfort Enjolras, but then he stops himself, and sits back down. “I’m so sorry.”

Enjolras shrugs. “It’s alright. I’m over it.” He’s not, but it’s not like he isn’t happy with what he’s doing now. “I’ve got a good job at a book store, and it gives me more time for Les Amis.”

Grantaire considers this for a moment. “No one ever tells me,” he says. “What are you guys up to now?”

“This and that,” Enjolras replies. He swipes at the blond locks in the corner of his vision. “You know.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “I don’t know, though,” he says, a hint of frustration in his tone. “I just said no one’s telling me anything.”

“Mostly LGBT+ issues.” Enjolras doesn’t mention the time that he took off (when Combeferre forced him too) when the pregnancy got too difficult, or the brief period when they focused on non-cis parenthood when what felt like the hundreth doctor misgendered Enjolras. Grantaire was never all that interested in Les Amis, anyway. Enjolras doesn’t mention that either.

Grantaire’s nod is slow and even. Enjolras wants to yank on his hair; use the black curls like a handle to pull R’s mouth to his. 

There’s the sound of a key turning in the lock on the front door, and Combeferre enters, the arm not securing Salomé to his hip clutching a bag that emits the rich odor of Indian curries. “Still alive, then?”

Enjolras stands up, and takes his daughter from Ferre. “We… worked some things out.”

“Talked,” Grantaire supplies.

“Grantaire is staying for dinner.”

Combeferre smiles. “I bought Murgh Kari.” It’s Grantaire’s favorite, familiar to both Ferre and Enjolras from back when Grantaire spent more time at Enjolras’ flat than his own.

Enjolras shifts Salomé’s weight, and brings her chubby little arm up to wave at Grantaire. “Say hello to R, sweetheart.” Grantaire blushes and waves at her, but Salomé only burries her face against Enjolras’ chest. He smiles apologetically at Grantaire, and takes Salomé over to the sink, scrubbing her hands between his own. She’s too young to eat most of the foods, still, but she’ll probably have some rice, so he sits her in her high chair and goes to help Combeferre with the food.

Enjolras puts some Chole Bhature on a plate, along with a little rice for Salomé, and grabs a plate for Grantaire as well. “What do you want, R?”

He shrugs. “Just the chicken, I guess.” He slides into the seat across from Salomé’s high chair, and Enjolras holds back a snort at the raw fear on his face.

“She bites only rarely,” Combeferre says.

“What?” Grantaire asks, startling.

“Salomé. She’s not going to hurt you,” Enjolras clarifies. “You look like she might attack you any moment.” Salomé pounds her tiny fists on the tray attached to her chair, and Combeferre hands her a sippy cup of water. She makes a face at it, scrunching up her enormous brown eyes, and Grantaire makes the same face back at her. Enjolras pushes away the warm feeling in his chest. He cannot let himself be pleased at the sight of Grantaire in his kitchen, playing with their daughter. ‘He left you,’ he tells himself. The warmth does not dissipate.

All four tuck into their meals with surprising viciousness. It is almost eight o’clock, long past time for Salomé to be in bed, and indeed, her eyes have started to drift shut. Enjolras watches her closely, unsure how to explain Grantaire to her. She’s young, odds are she soon won’t remember a time without him in her life. What will he be to her, though? Enjolras has always been her only parent, the only one she has; the only one she needs. What good will it do her to think of Grantaire as a father? It will only confuse her. No, the best thing is for him to remain simply R, and for Enjolras to deal with questions when she gets older.

\----------------

Grantaire watches Enjolras watch Salomé. He seems to be considering something, and Grantaire can tell the moment he makes up his mind; his shoulders relax, and the furrow in his brow fades away.

“Alright, Apollo?” he asks.

Enjolras frowns at him. “Don’t call me-”

Grantaire smirks, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Combeferre bite back a grin. “I was just wondering if there was something on your mind,” he says, innocence in every syllable.

At that, Combeferre outright snorts. “R didn’t do anything,” he agrees. “Don’t tell me a little nickname still annoys you that much, Enjolras.”

“I have a name,” Enjolras points out.

Grantaire laughs, and Salomé, who had been drifting off in her chair, opens her eyes and blinks at him. He laughs harder at the expression on her face, sleepy and indignant and so very Enjolras. After a moment, the little girl smiles, and then she starts laughing as well, her giggles high and clear.

Enjolras glares at her. “Betrayed by my own daughter!” he sighs, but Grantaire can see the smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.

Grantaire leans forward and bops Enjolras’ nose, because he can’t resist it. It was moments like these that made all the fighting in their relationship worth it, and the surge of nostalgia is so strong that Grantaire finds himself blinking back tears.

Enjolras’ mouth falls open, and Salomé’s peals of laughter get even louder. Combeferre joins in, his laugh deep in his chest. Grantaire misses this, the feeling of family that he always had with Les Amis. It just hasn’t been the same, spending time with his friends without Enjolras there, without Combeferre and Courfeyrac, without all of them together. This isn’t even that funny, it’s just Enjolras being Enjolras, but Grantaire is hysterical. It is either laugh or cry, and he can’t let Enjolras and Combeferre know how pathetic he is, longing for just a moment in his Apollo’s company.

Salomé’s laughter has been edging closer and closer to tears for a good ten seconds, and when she pounds her fists on the table, spilling her bowl of rice, and scrunches up her eyes, Enjolras gets up. “Shhh, sweetheart,” he says, soothing her as he lifts her from the chair and bounces her against his chest. “Are you ready for bed?”

Grantaire hasn’t finished his food, but he figures this is as much a dismissal as anything. Combeferre and Enjolras will have things to do; they don’t need him hanging around. “I should go,” he says. He has to raise his voice to be heard over Salomé’s wailing.

“You don’t have to-” Combeferre begins, but Grantaire interrupts.

“I have some painting to do,” he says. “Really, I should go. Thanks for having me.”

“At least take your food with you,” Enjolras calls. He’s heading further into the apartment, to the door which, if the layout of 3E matches Grantaire’s flat, leads to the bathroom. “Neither of us will eat it.”

Grantaire agrees after a staring contest with Combeferre (which R loses painfully), and allows the remaining Murgh Kari to be packed up for him. He leaves the apartment with his mind whirling, his heart warmer than it has been in a while and yet strangely aching.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is short, unedited, and later than I promised! I had a pretty bad headache earlier this week (I was out of school with that, so now I have a bunch of work to make up) but I have some delayed start days this week and the next because of state testing, so the next chapter shouldn't take too long. Thanks for all the comments!

After Enjolras puts Salomé to bed, he wanders the apartment, unsure what to do. He has some work for Les Amis, and he should probably pay the bills at some point, but he doesn’t particularly want to do either of those things. The image of Grantaire laughing at his kitchen table won’t leave his head. It was wonderful, seeing R again, seeing him happy. He wonders what Grantaire is doing right now, in his own apartment, just down the hall. Eventually, after Combeferre starts glaring from his seat on the couch, where Enjolras’ restless pacing has distracted him from grading tests, Enjolras pulls out his phone.

‘Thanks for talking,’ he types out, and hits send before he can second-guess himself. Hopefully the number is the same, the one Enjolras had deleted from his contacts but not his memory.

The reply comes just moments later. Enjolras can almost see Grantaire snatching up his phone to answer. ‘thnx 4 feeding me dinner’

‘Thank Ferre.’

The little gray bubble fills with dots, but they disappear a minute later. Enjolras glares at his phone, willing R to say something. Eventually, he admits defeat and puts his phone aside. The news is about to come on anyway, and there’s an important environmental bill up for debate he’s been keeping tabs on.

Enjolras watches the news, and he even manages to put Grantaire out of his mind while he’s doing it. But when he heads to the bathroom to get ready for bed, the artist is all he can think about once again. The shower curtain, of all things, reminds him of their old apartment, of blowjobs in a different shower with the same green shower curtain as a backdrop. He feels a rush off heat in his groin, but Enjolras pushes arousal away and brushes his teeth with a viciousness that may in fact be counterproductive to the health of his gums.

Once in bed, lying under a red quilt with the sounds of the city drifting in through the window, left ajar to catch the April breeze, Enjolras reaches for his phone again. He adds Grantaire back to his contacts, just as ‘R’ and stares at the gray circle that should hold a picture. It’s almost one a.m., and he has to drop Salomé off at daycare at seven thirty to be at work at eight, but Enjolras knows sleep will be evasive tonight.

Eventually, when the clock on his phone reads 2:37, Enjolras gives in, and texts Grantaire again. There’s no reply, but he smiles none the less, as he plugs his phone in on his nightstand and finally falls asleep.

\-----------

Grantaire wakes up at 10:09 a.m. to his blaring phone. He snatches it up, and accepts the call without bothering to check who it is. “This is R.”

“You saw Enjolras?” Joly asks.

Grantaire frowns. He had been dreading this confrontation ever since he talked to Éponine. “You didn’t tell me about my daughter.”

“Grantaire-”

“And yes, I know Enjolras didn’t want me to know, but he’s got stupid reasons for it. You’re supposed to be one of my best friends, Joly!”

“You… well, you weren’t-”

Grantaire hears someone else moving around, and then a voice says, “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” and there’s a scuffle. When someone speaks again, it’s Musichetta. “R,” she says.

“Chetta, why-”

She doesn’t let him finish the question. “We didn’t tell you because it would have been a bad idea.”

“What?”

“You’d relapsed, R, and if you knew that Enjolras didn’t want you to know about the baby, it could have been even worse. And it’s not like your relationship was exactly healthy, at the end. You were clingy and depressed and drunk eighty percent of the time, and Enjolras was busy and short-tempered. You two had problems that you needed to work out, and throwing a baby into the mix was not going to help.”

“So you thought what, that I would never find out? You were planning on keeping it from me forever?”

“Of course not, R. Just until you were… recovered.”

Grantaire bristles. “From the drinking? Because, if you haven’t noticed, I’d been doing a lot better, right up until the moment I saw Enjolras with his- our- daughter.”

“We were going to tell you soon.”

“And for that matter, why didn’t you warn Enjolras and Combeferre that I lived here?”

“We hadn’t seen his new place yet, Grantaire. They only moved in a few weeks ago.”

Everything Musichetta says sounds perfectly reasonable, and it’s infuriating, but when Grantaire opens his mouth to snap at her, his anger falls away. It leaves an empty space in his chest, a feeling that makes him want to cry, or drink.

“Are you alright?” Musichetta asks, when he’s been quiet for at least thirty seconds.

Grantaire nods, then remembers she can’t see him. “Yeah. I’m- fine.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow, ok?” she says.

“What?”

“Brunch tomorrow, yeah?”

“Oh! Right.” Grantaire’s head is a mess. “Yeah. Bye.” He hangs up the phone, and is about to turn it off when he notices some texts from Enjolras. They were sent early in the morning, like three a.m. Grantaire wonders if he’s what kept Enjolras up, if he’s so much of a worry that he’s keeping Enjolras from rest that he so clearly needs. Enjolras never did sleep enough, but with a young child- He shakes his head in an attempt to stop the spiralling, and opens the texts.

‘You should spend some time with Salomé’  
‘Like maybe watch her sometime’  
‘With or without me there, it’s up to you’  
‘Oh, sorry, I know it’s late. Hopefully these didn’t wake you. Goodnight!’

Grantaire smiles. Enjolras reached out to him, he wants him to “spend some time” with their daughter. That is not the behavior of someone who hates Grantaire’s guts and never wants to see him again.

A little bit of warmth grows in the empty spot in Grantaire’s chest. ‘Sure,’ he texts back. ‘whenever’s good for u’


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 5: As always, I am extremely grateful for any and all comments, and the editing was minimal, so if you spot any glaring typos or errors, feel free to tell me. Thanks for all the comments and kudos so far!

The Les Amis meeting on the Friday after Grantaire and Enjolras’ talk thrums with unspoken curiosity. As usual, Salomé is passed between various people throughout the meeting; Bahorel bounces her on his knees and Cosette and Jehan weave surprisingly intricate braids into what little hair she has. Everyone whose attention isn’t directly on Salomé, however, spends the meeting watching Enjolras with unapologetic eyes, even when Combeferre, Feuilly, and Courfeyrac are the ones talking. Éponine is there, for the first time in months, and her gaze is less curious than hostile. Joly, too, watches Enjolras with uncharacteristic anger.

Neither of them say anything, though, and Enjolras decides that the best plan is to stay away from them at the end of the meeting. Musichetta and Courfeyrac will not let him fade into the background, though.

“Enjy!” Courfeyrac says, sliding onto the stool beside Enjolras’. “How are you this fine evening?”

Musichetta settles down on the other side. “How was the conversation with Grantaire?”

“Direct,” Enjolras comments, trying to lean away. “It was fine. I’m sure you talked to him.”

Chetta moves closer. “I did.” She sighs. “But it was mostly him snapping about how we didn’t tell him he had a daughter.”

“I told him why-”

“Yeah, you did.” Courfeyrac interrupts. “And you had some pretty stupid reasons.”

“And we had some better ones for why we went along with it,” Musichetta agrees. “So that’s what I told him, but you, Enj, you really talked to R for the first time in years. How did it go?”

Enjolras shakes his head. “It was fine, Chetta. We talked; it was nice to catch up.”

“Are you going to talk again?”

“Probably,” he admits, his voice soft. “He said he wants to get to know Salomé.”

Musichetta smiles, and Courfeyrac looks like this is the best news he’s heard in months. “Really?!”

Enjolras nods. “I’m bringing her over to his tomorrow.”

“That’s good,” Chetta encourages.

“Good?” Courf exclaims. “That’s great! You two will talk again, and-”

Enjolras cuts him off with a glare. “Nothing is going to happen, Courf. He just wants a chance to get to know his daughter. We don’t love each other any more.”

Courfeyrac waggles his eyebrows, but Musichetta shrugs. “That’s good. You both need closure, and at least this will give you the chance to sort out some of your problems.”

“I don’t need closure,” Enjolras grumbles, but the look Chetta gives him tells him she knows otherwise. 

“Sure you don’t.”

“Leave him alone,” Ferre says, coming up behind them. Enjolras swivels on his stool. Combeferre has Salomé on his hip; her eyes are glazed and sleepy. “We should go, Enj, Somebody here needs to go to bed.”

Enjolras jumps at the chance to escape the interrogation. “Are you sleepy, sweetheart?” he asks, reaching out for Salomé.

She smiles up at him, snuggling against his shoulder. Enjolras hefts her up, and calls goodbye to the others as he and Combeferre head out the door.

 

In the morning, Enjolras awakes with a flash of excitement. He gets to see Grantaire again today, to spend the entire afternoon with him. The excitement only lasts a few seconds, though, before he feels a rush of fear. He’s going to spend the entire afternoon with Grantaire, and at some point he needs to explain to Salomé exactly who Grantaire is. How does one even do that, tell a one year old who has only ever had one parent that this is her other father? But he can’t keep her ignorant forever, and it’s better to explain it now, when they first meet, then when she’s older and feels betrayed.

Eventually, when the clock on his nightstand reads 7:07 and Salomé starts crying for him, Enjolras rolls out of bed and goes to get her. She’s standing up in her crib, clutching the bars for support. She looks adorable in her little dinosaur onesie, the one Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta got her for her first birthday. “Dada!” she exclaims, reaching out for him. In the process, she overbalances, and falls backwards onto her butt with a small sound of surprise.

He scoops her up before she can start crying, and changes her quickly before they head into the kitchen to get breakfast.

“Did you sleep well, sweetheart?” Enjolras is a firm believer in the idea that children should not be talked down to; he chatters to her, mostly about the day’s activities, every morning. Today, though, he has something important to tell her. “We’re going to see your Papa today, Salomé.” Sure, she won’t totally understand him, but at least this way he can talk out some of his anxieties. “You met him last week, remember? His name is Grantaire. R. And he has black hair and eyes like yours.”

Salomé blinks up at him as he sets a sippy cup of apple juice down in front of her, along with a bowl of dry cheerios.

“What do you think? Are you excited to see your Papa?”

She doesn’t respond, but watches wide-eyed as he sets to work scrambling eggs for his own breakfast. He’s gotten much better at cooking, since the days when he lived alone and got take-out or microwaved a frozen dish at every meal. Enjolras knows he owes most of that to Grantaire, to easy Sunday mornings spent making pancakes and frittatas. Cooking breakfast always reminds Enjolras of R, but today, with the artist already on his mind, it sends an extra burst of nostalgia through his bloodstream. Weekend mornings used to be one of the best parts in their relationship, lazy wake-up sex and glorious breakfasts that lasted long past noon. Looking back, Enjolras can pinpoint when he should have realized that they were falling apart: the first Sunday morning that he rolled out of bed and started working without so much as a kiss for Grantaire.

When his eggs are done and the coffee machine beeps, Enjolras slides into the seat across from Salomé. He sips at his coffee absentmindedly, not even registering the fact that he forgot to add milk and sugar, and watches his daughter pick at her cheerios with chubby fingers.

The morning passes both with agonizing slowness and at an impossible speed; soon enough, it’s time to wake Salomé up from her nap and head over to Grantaire’s. Enjolras slides on his shoes with trepidation swirling through his stomach. He grabs the diaper bag, carefully packed with all of the essentials and a few extra toys for Salomé to play with, and walks down the hall, the anxiety in his stomach mixing with something that can only be called happiness.  
\--------------  
Grantaire opens the door, his heart fluttering in his chest. Enjolras looks glorious before him, even dressed in a simple red t-shirt and jeans. Salomé is in his arms, her golden curls carefully brushed. She blinks at Grantaire with a considering expression on her face. Enjolras glances down at her and laughs.

“Sorry,” he says. “She just woke up from her nap. She should be more awake in a few minutes.”

Grantaire nods and steps aside, letting them into the apartment. He’d spent spent all morning cleaning; it’s probably tidier than it was when he moved in. “You can sit down,” he says, gesturing to the couch.

Enjolras does so, studying the apartment with an indecipherable expression on his face. “This is nice,” he says, pointing to the painting on Grantaire’s easel.

It’s a picture of Musichetta, one he’d started working on weeks ago. Ever since he saw Enjolras again, he hasn’t been able to paint anything else, but he figured it would probably be kind of creepy, to walk into your ex’s apartment and see a half-finished portrait of yourself, so he’d hid them in his bedroom. There’s no need for Enjolras to know just how not over him Grantaire is.

“Thanks.” Grantaire says. “Do you, um, want anything to drink or-”

Enjolras shakes his head tightly. In his arms, Salomé starts to squirm. He lets her scramble down, and start toddling around the room. “You put away your paints, right?”

Grantaire nods. “Yeah, even the watercolors. I figured it was better safe than sorry, so-”

Enjolras gives him a blinding smile, and Grantaire is left blinking dumbly at him, his thoughts scattered. “Oh!” he exclaims, when he can think again. “I didn’t really know what type of toys she likes, so I just got this.” He holds out the stuffed frog he bought. “I was going to wrap it, but it turns out I didn’t have any paper, so-”

“You didn’t have to get her anything,” Enjolras hurries to say.

Grantaire shrugs. “Well, I missed a birthday and a Christmas, not to mention the day she was born, so-”

Enjolras shakes his head insistently. “I’m one hundred percent sure that if you’d known, you would have been there. It’s not your fault, R.” And that cuts right to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it?

Grantaire doesn’t know what to say to that, so he sinks down to the ground, holding out the stuffed frog for Salomé. She ignores him, instead studying the bookshelf as if considering which book she should read.

“Salomé,” Enjolras calls. “Sweetheart, come see what your Papa brought you.”

“Papa?” Grantaire sputters.

Enjolras turns back to him. “We can call you R, if you want, it’s just, I mean, I’m ‘Daddy,’ so I figured-”

“No,” Grantaire assures him. “Papa’s fine. I just, you know, wasn’t expecting-”

“For me to acknowledge the relationship?”

Grantaire shrugs. He’s always expected the worst, especially when it came to his relationship with Enjolras.

“Of course I want her to know you’re her father,” Enjolras assures him. “It’s important.”

“Oh.” Grantaire can’t hold back the grin that spills across his face. “Salomé,” he says, turning back to his daughter. “Come see the froggy.”

The little girl finally turns around, and studies him with the same serious expression he’s seen on Enjolras’ face hundreds of times. “Foggy?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, moving the stuffed animal up and down. “It’s a froggy. Do you want it?”

She toddles over to him, but stops a few steps away from where he’s sitting, and looks at Enjolras. “Dada? Foggy?”

“Yes, Salomé, it’s a froggy. Your Papa bought it for you.”

Grantaire waves the frog at her, and Salomé points at him. “Papa?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says. “I’m your Papa.” The words bring a warmth to his chest, and he wants to pull Salomé to him and protect her forever. She still seems wary of him, though, so he just bounces the frog again.

She finally accepts the stuffed animal, hugging it to her chest and kissing it’s head. “Foggy.”

“What’s it’s name, Salomé?” Enjolras asks the question completely seriously, and Grantaire is struck by how much he’s changed in just the past two years. He never hated children, or even disliked them, but he’d always been uneasy with them, unsure how to behave around them. He’s still a little like that, he treats Salomé more like a mini adult than a toddler, but he’s been nothing but the perfect father every time Grantaire has seen them together.

Salomé herself considers the question as if it’s a life-or-death matter. She looks around the room as if it will give her a clue, and then looks down at the frog itself. “Papa,” she declares solemnly.

“But that’s my name!” Grantaire says, faking outrage.

Salomé’s lip trembles. Grantaire’s seen that exact expression on Enjolras before, when he was tired and Grantaire was making him stop working or head home from a protest.

“But it’s ok!” Grantaire assures her quickly.

Salomé shakes her head. “No.”

“What are you going to call it, then?” Enjolras asks, leaning forward.

Salomé takes a few steps back, so she’s leaning against Enjolras’ leg, and then she considers the question again. Finally, she points at Grantaire. “Papa?”

“That’s me,” Grantaire says.

“You.”

“Me what? Do you want me to give the frog a name?” All of Grantaire’s experience with understanding children, from back when his little sister was small, is rushing back to the surface now that he’s talking to Salomé.

She nods, hugging Enjolras’ leg.

Grantaire looks to the blond for help, but Enjolras only smiles. “What are you going to name it, R?”

“Hmm…” Grantaire says, resigning himself to his fate. He studies the frog carefully, trying to think of a suitable name. His sister is on his mind now, and her eyes were the same color as Salomé’s. “How about Claudine?” he offers.

Enjolras shakes his head. “That’s her middle name.”

“What?” Grantaire asks, shocked. “You named her after-”

“Yes,” Enjolras says. His eyes bore holes into Grantaire’s skull. “I mean, Claudine died just a few months before we broke up, and Salomé was born around the anniversary, and I figured, even if you weren’t there, you’d want to honor her, so-”

Grantaire can feel the tears gathering his eyes, but he doesn’t want to scare Salomé, so he pushes them away, and focuses on the task at hand. What is he going to name the frog? Enjolras is smiling, and Grantaire decides to take a risk. “How about Louis?” he asks.

Salomé nods decisively. “Louis.”

“What?!” Enjolras sputters. “You can’t name her frog something with such ties to the monarchy!”

“I just did,” Grantaire says, laughing. “Do you like the name, Salomé?”

“Yes,” she says, and Grantaire laughs even harder.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay. I had finals and a small case of writer's block, but here it is. I am officially on summer break now, so the next chapter will be here soon. Thanks so much to Alexa (LesMisGranjolras_OTP) for agreeing to beta for me. Your help was invaluable. Thanks for the comments! I promise the next chapter will be here soon, and it will be longer and angstier. Edit: 6/30: Thanks to LL for pointing out a continuity error. I fixed it!

It’s not long after that when Salomé starts rubbing her eyes and pouting, signalling that she’s ready for bed. Enjolras scoops her up and is out the door with only a muttered goodbye. He doesn’t want ruin the memory of the afternoon. When Grantaire closes the door behind him, an empty feeling sinks into Enjolras’ chest. Combeferre is spending the night at Courfeyrac’s, so it’s just Salomé and Enjolras tonight. Salomé is fussy-like she’s missing Grantaire too-and Enjolras has trouble getting her to eat anything at all. When he finally gives up, there are more peas on the ground than in Salomé’s stomach and his grilled cheese sandwich is burning on the griddle. He turns off the heat and takes Salomé into the bathroom.

She’s sobbing outright now; her brown eyes, Grantaire’s eyes, red and glassy, and every breath a shuddery, snotty mess. She’s not got enough of a vocabulary yet to be particularly coherent, but she expects Enjolras to understand her. It’s aggravating for both of them. With each answer to a question she isn’t asking, she screams louder, until Enjolras feels like his head is going to explode. He considers calling Ferre for help, but the poor man deserves some time away from the child he’s essentially co-parenting, especially considering the fact that she’s not his.

“Please stop, I’m trying my best,” Enjolras begs. He knows it’s hopeless; when Salomé gets like this she won’t stop until she cries herself out.

She continues to cry straight through her bath and it’s not until Enjolras gets her into her pajamas, the ones with constellations on them that Jehan bought for her birthday, that the sobs begin to taper off. Each breath still has that shivering, shaking exhale as Enjolras carries her into her bedroom.

Enjolras feels like crying as well. For several glorious hours, he had sat with Grantaire. They had played with their daughter and talked easily, and there hadn’t been a single argument. It was like an afternoon of what might have been, if Enjolras wasn’t such a coward and Grantaire hadn’t relapsed.

And now it is over. Grantaire has returned to his own apartment and his own life, and Enjolras is moments away from bursting into tears. He actually envies Salomé, whose sobbing is much more socially acceptable than his own would be. He’s twenty-four and almost in tears over his ex, who broke up with him two years ago. Enjolras needs to get it together. He and Grantaire can become part of each other’s lives again, maybe even friends, but it’s never going to be the same.

That thought alone is enough to break Enjolras’ heart all over again.  
\---------  
Grantaire closes the door behind Enjolras with a fluttering in his chest and the very beginning of withdrawal. He hasn’t had a drink since last night, too afraid of making Enjolras mad at him, and now his body is protesting the lack. He opens a bottle of vodka and takes a gulp, just to stave off the worst, before he grabs a bottle of red wine and retreats to the second bedroom, which he has converted into a studio.

The room is a mess of torn up sketches and broken pencils, and the smell of oil paint is all-consuming, despite the fact that Grantaire hasn’t felt real inspiration in almost three years. Now, with the memory of Enjolras’ smile fresh in his mind, Grantaire reaches not for the oil paints but for his watercolors.

Watercolor has never been his best medium, but it seems the only proper way to capture the sunny afternoon spent in Enjolras’ living room. It’s like something out of a dream. The colors are already blurring together in his mind, and Grantaire wastes no time with worry, just puts a pencil to paper and starts sketching.

When he finally sets down the brush, it’s almost midnight, and the picture is perfect. It’s Enjolras, sunlight glinting off his golden hair. He’s smiling down at Salomé, who has Louis the frog in her arms and a tired look in her eyes. It’s everything Grantaire wants and everything he can’t have. His chest hurts.

He pushes the painting away, and takes a shaky breath. Maybe he’ll give it to Enjolras, as a birthday present or something, but right now, Grantaire can’t bear to look at it. He retreats to the kitchen, closing the door of his studio behind him.

 

In the morning, Grantaire texts Jehan. They have always known how to cheer him up when he gets in a mood like this, and they’ll appreciate his painting for its own sake, more than any of their other friends (except Feuilly, but he’s surely busy).

‘how did your time with Enj and Salomé go?’ Jehan responds. Of course they know about it.

‘fine.’

‘she’s a very sweet kid, isn’t she?’

Grantaire smiles. Salomé is wonderful, all the intensity of Enjolras with none of the sharpness or anger. She’s an angel in the modern sense, while Enjolras is like something out of the Old Testament, all fire and “Do not be afraid.”

There was a time, once, when Grantaire wasn’t afraid of Enjolras.

‘do you need to talk?’ Jehan asks. Without waiting for a response, they add, ‘i’m at the shop from nine until four today’

Jehan’s shop is scattered and seemingly arbitrarily curated, but if one knows Jehan, it’s like looking inside their brain. There are little plants in every corner and an abundance of poetry books, there are knickknacks and sketches and tiny sculptures on every surface, with the flowers and flowy scarves scattered around it’s everything that makes Jehan who they are. It’s one of Grantaire’s favorite places on earth.

‘i’ll be there in 30 min’ he replies.

 

He brings the painting with him mainly because he doesn’t trust himself with it right now, and when he puts it down on the counter, Jehan’s eyes widen. “It’s gorgeous, love,” they say. It’s completely sincere, and Grantaire feels a flicker of warmth in his empty heart.

“Thanks. I need you to take it.”

Jehan nods, searching Grantaire’s face. “How did you sleep?”

Grantaire doesn’t dignify the question with a response; Jehan already knows the answer.

“I got in a new book I think you’ll like,” Jehan says. They pull out a copy of Howl and Other Poems, and Grantaire frowns.

“I read Ginsberg in high school, Jehan.”

They shrug, “Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of something from your past. And I’m guessing you don’t want to talk right now, so…”

Grantaire accepts the book and wanders off to find his favorite arm chair. He doesn’t have to work until five, and this is as good a place as any to spend his day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos! This chapter isn't too heartbreaking, but it's coming, either in the next one or the one after that. Sorry this is so short. I have a habit of writing very short chapters, and especially given the way this fic is structured, with the first part of each chapter from Enjolras' point of view and the second from Grantaire's, it's very difficult to make it longer than a certain length. I hope it doesn't bother anyone. Thanks to Alexa for beta-reading, and find me on tumblr as mythicalmaddiemonster.

Over the next several weeks, Enjolras and Salomé have dinner with Grantaire four times, twice with Combeferre and twice without. The meals are easy and casual, almost enough for Enjolras to forget why he and Grantaire fell apart in the first place.

The Tuesday night three weeks after their afternoon together, Enjolras texts Grantaire with a photograph of Chinese takeout. There’s a knock on the door ten minutes later. Enjolras opens it with Salomé balanced on his hip. The corners of his mouth turn up involuntarily at the sight of Grantaire’s paint-smudged face. Salomé babbles excitedly.

Enjolras sets her down in the living room, and she holds up her stuffed frog. “Papa!” she calls.

“Hey, Salomé,” Grantaire says. Enjolras watches out of the corner of his eye as Grantaire leans down and ruffles her hair. “How’s Louis today?”

“She loves that frog, you know,” Enjolras tells him, spooning General Tso’s chicken onto a plate. “It’s her new favorite. Even replaced that ancient bear I’ve had since third grade.” He looks up in time to see Grantaire’s smile; it’s small but definitely there.

“I liked frogs when I was little,” Grantaire says, shrugging.

Enjolras sets the food down on the coffee table. “There was that picture, that Claudine showed me, when you were little, and you had that little onesie, with the frog hood… that was adorable.”

“Yeah. One of the only things my mother bought me. My sister, Claudine, she used to tease me…” Grantaire’s face falls.

“I’m sorry she’s gone.”

Grantaire ignores the statement. “Where’s ‘Ferre?”

“Working late. It’s parent teacher conferences tonight.” Enjolras sinks down onto the couch, and Grantaire sits down beside him. Salomé isn’t paying attention to them, just bouncing her frog up and down. “Sweetheart, it’s dinner time.”

She looks up at him. “Daddy?”

“Come sit here, Salomé.”

She doesn’t move, though, and Enjolras starts to stand up. Grantaire beats him to it.

“Come on, Salomé. Don’t you like rice?” he asks, scooping her up. He sets her down on his lap, and takes the spoon Enjolras holds out.

Salomé makes a face, but she accepts a spoonful of rice, and chews it with a curious expression on her face.

Enjolras smiles, and reaches for the remote, flipping the TV to some documentary about the Roman Empire. They eat in easy silence, Grantaire alternating bites between himself and Salomé. Eventually, her eyes start to drift shut, and she settles back against Grantaire’s chest.

Grantaire’s expression, when he looks up at Enjolras, is full of wonder. Enjolras recognizes it, remembers that same feeling from when Salomé was first born; the awe of seeing someone that he created finally there, in front of him was overwhelming.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Grantaire nods. “Of course. She’s your daughter isn’t she?”

Enjolras blushes. “I mean, it’s more than that, she’s just… it’s really wonderful, to have something, someone, that I created, depend on me. Like the entire time I was carrying her around inside of me, I was wondering what she’d be like, and now I know, and she’s so perfect…” He trails off when he notices Grantaire studying him. “What?”

“I never knew you could be such a sap,” Grantaire says, mirth flashing in his brown eyes.

“Fuck you.”

“Okay.” Grantaire’s tone is joking, easy, just as it has been throughout their entire conversation. When he realizes what he said, though, the smirk falls from his face.

This sort of exchange was once common between the two of them. Most of the time they’d follow through with the challenge. To Enjolras and Grantaire, this sort of teasing was the best kind of foreplay.

It seems the habit hasn’t gone away, either. Grantaire’s pupils are blown wide, and Enjolras knows that his face is the same color as the strawberries on Salomé’s dress. He swallows. “Um… I should really get Salomé to bed. She has daycare, and I have work in the morning…”

Grantaire nods quickly, as though he’s eager to escape the awkwardness too. “Yeah.” He holds Salomé out, and Enjolras accepts her, forcing his eyes away from Grantaire’s body.

“‘Night,” he calls, already disappearing to the bathroom to get Salomé ready for bed.

When he comes back to the living room, Grantaire is gone, but their dishes have been washed, and the leftovers are in the fridge.  
\------  
The first time they met, Enjolras was young. He still is young, of course; Grantaire is too. But that sunny autumn afternoon when Grantaire, already drunk, had tripped and fallen at Enjolras’ feet, the youth was innocence. It was the inexperience and fragile naivete that radiated from his face, not the physical age. Even then, virginal, idealistic Enjolras had been quick to anger and easy to bait. There had been a heady rush, when Grantaire, caught up in Enjolras like a moth to a flame, followed his new god into the Musain and watched him declaim everything from ancient monarchies to city politics. The rush had turned to a spike of pleasure and arousal when Grantaire interrupted and Enjolras responded with an intensity that had Grantaire half-hard from words alone.

The first time they fucked was almost a year later, sober Enjolras for once tipsy and ever-drunk Grantaire not quite as sloppy as usual. If baiting Enjolras was arousing, then fucking him, or rather Enjolras using Grantaire to fuck himself, was heart-stoppingly wonderful. It was dangerously elating; as addicting as the coke and heroin and booze constantly in Grantaire’s veins in those days. Enjolras had already captured Grantaire’s heart, now he’d found his way to his pleasure receptors and Grantaire couldn’t find bliss without him.

Their first proper date was ten months after that, after Joly had found them fucking and Bossuet told everyone. It was after Combeferre confronted Enjolras and everyone else held an intervention for some of Grantaire’s more self-destructive tendencies, after Grantaire quit the drugs and cut back on the booze. It was after the blowout fight where Grantaire admitted his love and fled town for two weeks, after Jehan tracked him down and dragged him home and Enjolras admitted, in his awkward manner, that he too had feelings that were something more than friendship.

Their first fight as a couple was brutal, sharp tongues and sharper shreds of anger. It was slammed doors and bruised hearts and Grantaire almost going back to the drugs, the closest he came in the years of their relationship. It was tearful apologies and utterly fantastic makeup sex, and Grantaire finally realizing that whatever happened in the future, in that moment, Enjolras wanted him. Enjolras loved him.

It was Enjolras who first suggested moving in together, only he phrased it as a forgone conclusion, something that was going to happen as soon as they found a decent apartment. The momentum of the occasion was almost enough to make Grantaire take a drink, but his sobriety was hard won, on both his part and his friends’, and he was not going to let all of that go to waste for something that was actually good. The first night in their new place, after an exhausting day of moving, Enjolras had said, his smile all for Grantaire, that he loved Grantaire more than he had ever loved an individual person before.

When Claudine died, four months later, it was the beginning of the end.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all of your lovely comments. I'm sorry I took so long to get this chapter out. I was in London, and also I just generally procrastinated because that's what I do. I did get to see Les Mis on the West End while I was in London, and that was amazing! Thank you to Alexa for beta-ing, and thanks to everyone who still read this despite the long spaces between chapters.

‘I missed you. I miss you. I love you.’

Enjolras types out the message absentmindedly, careful to leave the address bar blank. His phone is sticky with the remnants of one of Salomé’s snacks, but cleaning it seems futile.

Combeferre, working in his favorite armchair, speaks without looking up from his book. “Do you know how many men were practically married, with proper ceremonies and everything, before the church began to look down on it?”

“What?” Enjolras glances at him, quickly deleting his drafted text.

“I’m reading this book… it’s quite interesting, really. It does focus more on men than anyone else, but, in the author’s defense, there’s almost certainly more evidence for men.”

Enjolras shrugs. “That’s nice. What is it called?” He’s not particularly paying attention, still caught up in his thoughts, but when Combeferre holds up the book, Enjolras looks over long enough to read the title. “‘Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe,’” he reads aloud. “Sounds interesting. You should lend it to R.”

“R? Really?” Combeferre asks, cocking an eyebrow.

Enjolras can feel his face flush. “What?” he defends. “He’s always been into classics and such.”

Ferre nods. “Of course. But Jehan loves it too. Since when has Grantaire been your first thought in situations like this?”

“I-” Enjolras ducks his head to hide his burning face.

“You have been spending quite a lot of time with him,” Combeferre continues. “Should I be worried?”

“About what?” Enjolras asks, his brow furrowing. He’s an adult, he has a daughter; Enjolras can take care of himself. He doesn’t need Combeferre watching his every move.

There’s a movement that Enjolras doesn’t catch. “I just…” Combeferre trails off. “I just want to make sure you’re being careful, Enj. Grantaire already broke your heart once.”

“I’m fine. Don’t baby me. R is just getting to know Salomé. I’ve deprived him of that right for long enough.” Even as he says the words, Enjolras knows he is lying. He presses on anyway, “I’m not going to fall in love with him again.”

He thinks of Grantaire, of him holding out Louis the Frog to Salomé, her little hand reaching up and R’s smile-the small, soft one of lazy mornings from long ago. Enjolras’ heart clenches.

Combeferre doesn’t look convinced, but thankfully he drops it anyway.. “When do Salomé and Courf get back?”

Enjolras shrugs. “I’m not sure. She usually gets tired of the park in an hour or less, but I told Courf he could get her a new toy afterwards, so…”

The chuckle that Combeferre lets loose is low and sweet. It makes Enjolras smile, the thought of how much his best friends love each other. “He spoils her rotten,” Ferre murmurs fondly.

“At least there’s only one kid around right now. When Chetta, Joly, and Bossuet start, or Marius and Cosette… That’s going to be a real strain on your bank account.”

“I think by the time Joly finishes med school, Courf’s going to be angling for a kid of his own,” Combeferre says.

“That soon?” Enjolras asks. He wouldn’t trade Salomé for the world, but she’s certainly made his accustomed lifestyle rather difficult. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

Combeferre snorts. “You do realize I am actively helping you raise your daughter, right?”

Enjolras nods. “Yeah, but it’s different. You’re not obligated to. If she gets to be too much, if I get to be too much-”

“I promise, Enj, I’m not doing anything I don’t want to. You’re my best friend, practically my brother. I love you and Salomé more than enough to make up for your faults.” He smiles. “And to answer your question, I’m ready when Courf is. If he asked me today, I’d marry him tomorrow.”

“Sap,” Enjolras teases, but the word comes out flat. He misses that, the absolute certainty that someone is the right person for him, that they loved him enough to do anything for him. Of course all of his friends would die for him, kill someone, hide a body, and Enjolras would do the same for them. But with Grantaire it was different, implicit on a level that he had gotten used to. With Grantaire, it was a warm body beside him in the night and the promise to love him first and foremost, forever.

Or so he’d thought.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Combeferre asks.

Enjolras is saved from answering by the slam of the front door.

“Honey, I’m home,” Courfeyrac calls. Salomé babbles something.

Enjolras stands up and takes her from Courfeyrac so he can remove his four layers of outerwear. Immediately, she starts to cry. Enjolras rolls his eyes. “See what you’ve done? She likes you better than me now.”

“Good,” Courf says, dropping a pair of thick, fluffy socks. He has another pair of socks on beneath the first pair, these ones pink and flowery. “Children are supposed to love me the most.”

“It’s five degrees out there,” Combeferre says.

“Yeah, it’s cold.” Courfeyrac stands on his tiptoes to peck Combeferre on the lips.

Enjolras’ chest seizes up again.

“But is it really cold enough for thermal underwear?”

Courfeyrac ignores the comment, instead heading into the kitchen and dropping his various shopping bags on the table. Three of them are from the toy store.

Enjolras groans. “I said one toy, Courf.”

“But there were so many choices-” Combeferre tuts, choking back a smirk, and Courfeyrac swats at his arm. “Oh, shut up you.”

“Yeah, I’m donating all but one thing,” Enjolras says. He starts taking the purchases out of the bag and holding them up for Salomé to consider. Outside, the sun is setting, and Combeferre flicks on the overhead lights.

“No-” Courfeyrac whines.

“Keep it up and I’ll get rid of all of it,” Enjolras threatens. “Salomé won’t care, she has that frog from R.”

“Louis?” Salomé asks, perking up.

Enjolras shifts her weight on his hip. “Yeah, love. It think it’s in the diaper bag, Courf-”

Combeferre is the one who ends up searching through the bag to find the toy, while a pouting Courfeyrac searches through the takeout menu drawer. Salomé squeals when Combeferre hands her the frog. Enjolras smiles.

“Is Chinese okay?” Courfeyrac asks.

There’s a murmur of agreement, and Courfeyrac goes to call in their orders, memorized in finals-week-marathons years ago.  
\---------  
Grantaire’s in love with Enjolras.

Of course he is. He’s always loved Enjolras, since the first moment he saw him and, if he’s being honest, probably even before that. Loving Enjolras is so ingrained in Grantaire’s brain that it’s probably a part of his DNA. Grantaire has never not loved Enjolras.

But for the past two years, or at least the past year, he had been doing better. He may not have been ready to move on, or even have a one-night-stand, but he had started actually noticing other people. “Yes, Éponine, I did, remember- that one time, the blond at the Corinthe.”

“R.”

“I did! I told you he was hot, remember? At the end of September? Bahorel’s birthday?”

“R, that man was the closest to Enjolras you could possibly get. I actually thought it was him for like a solid minute and a half.”

“Oh.” 

Ok, so maybe he wasn’t getting there. But he was working on it. He was working on getting there. Someday, Grantaire was going to be ready to move on. Now, with Enjolras back in his life, beautiful as ever and fiery and perfect, there’s no hope for him. After seeing Enjolras again, talking to him, spending time with their daughter… Grantaire is never, ever going to be over him. He is, always and forever, going to pine for Enjolras. Sometimes, that doesn’t seem so bad. Other times, like right now: lying on his couch and moaning to Éponine about Enjolras’ eyes, it seems like he won’t survive.

“They’re just so blue, but not like flat blue, not like the ocean or the sky or other people’s eyes…”

“I know, R, you told me.”

“And I’ve never quite gotten the shade right, when I paint him.”

“I’ve seen those paintings,” Éponine says. She’s perched on the back of the couch, evoking memories of Cosette. Sometimes Grantaire forgets that they were children together, that Cosette and Éponine knew each other long before either of them knew him. “They’re not bad.”

“What?”

“The paintings, R. You did a very good job with Enjolras’ eyes.”

“Pshaw,” Grantaire says. “What do you know about art?” But his stomach warms at the compliment.

“Why are you moaning to me about this, anyway? You could be with Enjolras right now, reflecting internally on his eyes and working on getting him back so you can extoll his virtues to him again.” Éponine picks at her chipped nail polish, leaving flakes of black all over Grantaire’s legs.

Grantaire flinches at the very concept. “Get Enjolras back? ‘Ponine, I broke his heart. He’s never going to want me back.”

Éponine looks him in the eye and smiles sadly. “You broke each other’s hearts, but that’s beside the point. You’re in much better places right now. Things could work out.”

“He doesn’t love me any more.” Grantaire buries his face in a pillow, a gold one with hideous magenta birds on it. He’s pretty sure Jehan bought it for him. “He’s only seeing me again because of Salomé.”

Éponine slides down the couch and lands on his calves. “There’s nothing that says he’s obligated to let you see Salomé,” she points out. “I’m pretty sure your name isn’t on the birth certificate, and if it is, the fact that you never tried to establish contact frees him of forced visitation.”

“How could I try to establish contact if he didn’t tell me Salomé existed?”

She pats his thigh. “Yeah, I know it’s not your fault. I’m just saying. If he’s bringing Salomé to visit now, it’s because he wants to. If you never knew about her, you wouldn’t have ever tried to establish contact. Enjolras telling you now… it’s because he wants to see you.”

“So? He’s always had a strong sense of morality. He probably just felt guilty for depriving her of having two parents or whatever. Or he wanted to keep her from searching for me when she’s older, so he’s introducing us now and she gets the chance to be turned off the idea of her other father.” He picks up his beer from the coffee table and takes a swig.

“You have the worst self esteem of anyone I know,” Éponine sighs “Salomé adores you. And Enjolras is not that devious.”

“Yes he is.”

“Alright, fine he is, but not in this. He wouldn’t manipulate you like that. And if he is, if that’s his whole plan, than he’s failing.”

“What?”

“Salomé loves you,” Éponine repeats, stealing his beer even though hers is half-full and just a few inches further.

“She hasn’t seen me drunk yet,” Grantaire points out.

“So don’t let her.” She says this matter-of-factly, like it’s just that easy. “You’ve quit before.”

He pulls the pillow down over his face again. “It would be harder this time.”

“Why? Because you don’t have Enjolras coaching you through it?”

Despite himself, Grantaire nods. He lets the pillow slide off his face and down over the edge of the couch.

“So ask him,” Éponine encourages. “He would help you. He wants you to be happy.”

Grantaire groans, and then mumbles some half-agreement, but he knows he’s not going to ask Enjolras for anything, and especially not that. He doesn’t have the right to request things of Enjolras any more.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at mythicalmaddiemonster. Title from "Song of Despair" by Pablo Neruda: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-of-despair-2/. Also, I'm looking for a beta, so if anyone knows how I could find one, or is willing to beta my work themselves, that would be great!


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